Mia Macias quizzes her uncle Fidel Lemus from the naturalization test pamphlet as they attend a recent citizenship workshop at the M.O. Campbell Center in Houston.

Mia Macias quizzes her uncle Fidel Lemus from the naturalization test pamphlet as they attend a recent citizenship workshop at the M.O. Campbell Center in Houston.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

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This year Latino groups project at least 13.1 million Hispanics will vote compared to almost 10 million in 2008, making up roughly 10 percent of the electorate.

This year Latino groups project at least 13.1 million Hispanics will vote compared to almost 10 million in 2008, making up roughly 10 percent of the electorate.

Photo: Erich Schlegel, Stringer

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Angelina Garcia, right, works on filling out citizenship application paperwork during a citizenship workshop at the M.O. Campbell Center on Saturday, April 30, 2016, in Houston. A coalition of non-profit organizations spent Saturday helping people apply for citizenship. less

Angelina Garcia, right, works on filling out citizenship application paperwork during a citizenship workshop at the M.O. Campbell Center on Saturday, April 30, 2016, in Houston. A coalition of non-profit ... more

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

Trump anxiety spurs Latino voter registration

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The prospect of a Donald Trump presidency has led to a surge in applications for citizenship and voter registrations among Hispanics angered by the presumptive Republican nominee's incendiary comments about Mexicans and his threats to deport all immigrants in the country illegally.

Since last summer, when Trump ignited a furor by labeling Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, average monthly citizenship applications nationwide spiked nearly 15 percent to about 64,800 between August and January compared to the same period the year before.

Such an uptick in naturalizations doesn't bode well for Trump, or Republicans in general, because nearly half of all new Americans are Latinos, who in polls overwhelmingly express disapproval of the candidate at the top of the ticket, political analysts say.

In all, about 730,000 immigrants became citizens last year, a 12 percent increase from 2014. In Texas, the number of new Americans grew by a quarter in 2015 to 66,000.

Advocacy groups say those new citizens, as well as Latinos who are citizens but have never voted, are registering to go to the polls at higher rates than ever before.

Among them is Larisa Gonzalez, a senior at Cesar E. Chavez High School in southeast Houston, who, motivated to cast a ballot against Trump, registered to vote for the first time last week.

"He's been so discriminating and racist to us Hispanics that it makes me and my friends wonder if we're going to have the same opportunities in the future that we have now," she said. "As Hispanics, we are all afraid."

More Information

Number of immigrants turned U.S. citizens in 2015, up 12 percent from 2014.

66,000

Number new American citizens in Texas last year, up 25 percent from 2014.

2,200

Number of people at monthly naturalization ceremonies in Houston.

And many Republicans find Trump, and in particular his tone on immigration, refreshing, a recognition that the federal government isn't doing enough to fix what everyone agrees is a broken system. They see him as a truth-teller who isn't afraid to say "politically incorrect" things about illegal immigration.

His call to deport all 11 million immigrants here illegally was especially well received by some of his supporters, even though prominent Republicans slammed it as impractical, even unconstitutional.

It's also spurring much of the citizenship applications, said Mariana Sanchez, chief operating officer of Bonding Against Adversity Inc., a Houston non-profit helping residents to naturalize. Immigrants say they want to naturalize now so they can help their relatives obtain green cards in case the policy materializes.

"I haven't seen this level of interest," Sanchez said. "The community is concerned."

Though a minority, conservative Hispanics say Trump recognizes the problems at the border. Patti Magnon, 44, has lived in Laredo all her life and watched as drug cartels made it impossible to visit neighboring Nuevo Laredo.

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"The (immigrants) that are crossing now are murderers and rapists. You see how the cartel has taken over the border," said Magnon, who works at a local law firm. "The minute Trump made that statement I was like, 'Oh my gosh.' For him to so bluntly say the truth, I could not believe it."

But among the majority of Hispanics, Trump's stance on immigration and his disparaging remarks have helped mobilize Latinos in ways even Republican strategists say they've never seen.

Since last summer monthly naturalization ceremonies in Houston have swelled to about 2,200 compared to the 1,200 that was typical before. Of those, an average of more than 80 percent are registering to vote compared to the previous 60 percent.

Many tell volunteers they've had green cards for years but naturalized now to cast a ballot against Trump. The process, from turning in an application to the final swearing-in ceremony, takes about six months, making May crunch time for those seeking to vote in November.

"There is fear, and there is anger," said Claudia Ortega-Hogue, vice president of the Houston-area League of Women Voters.

In California, new voter registrations skyrocketed to more than 850,000 registrations between Jan. 1 and March 31, twice as many as during the same period in 2012, according to data collected by Political Data Inc. Growth among Latinos doubled in that time.

In Iowa, five times as many Hispanics voted in presidential caucuses this spring compared to 2008, according to an analysis of exit polls by the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Millennials make up a larger share among Latino eligible voters than other groups in 2016

Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican media consultant in San Antonio who has worked on seven presidential campaigns, said he isn't surprised by the Latino blowback.

"When you take a whole group of people and you call them murderers and rapists, it's a personal affront," he said. "Sure, they are going to register, and it's going to be an anti-Trump vote."

More than 40 percent of the 7.1 million immigrants who became citizens in the past decade are from Central and South America, according to the most recent government data between 2004 and 2013. Some 1 million are from Mexico.

Less impact in Texas

In the past, volunteers had to approach people and "almost twist their arms" for them to sign up to vote, said Carlos Duarte, who oversees Texas for Mi Familia Vota, a national group focused on boosting Latino voter registration.

"What is different now is that people approach us," Duarte said. "They would always make these comments, and it was very heavily a reaction against Donald Trump."

"But when the community perceives itself as under attack, then it absolutely responds and goes to the polls," said Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant in California who specializes in Latino voters. "I have never seen a candidate as polarizing in the Latino community as Donald Trump, so of course it's going to have an effect."

A record 27 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in 2016. Though one of the nation's fastest-growing voting blocs, they historically lag behind other races and ethnic groups in Election Day turnout, in part because so many are young voters who are less inclined to show up.

This year Latino groups project at least 13 million Hispanics will vote compared to 9.7 million in 2008. That figure could grow, however, thanks to Trump.

Democrats are trying to capitalize on the anti-Trump sentiment. In March, billionaire George Soros announced a $15 million campaign to mobilize Latinos and other immigrants. Most of the money will be spent in Colorado, Florida and Nevada - pivotal swing states in the presidential race and in the battle for the Senate.

In a boon for the GOP, however, about half of the country's eligible Hispanic voters live in California and Texas, two solidly blue-and-red states where the Latino impact is likely to be muted.

A greater Hispanic turnout may only make a dent in Texas, said William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, D.C. That's because the state's 9.2 million eligible white voters are almost double the size of the Hispanic electorate and supported Abbott, the Republican governor, by more than 70 percent in 2014.

A strong Latino turnout combined with winning over some Republican women, however, might help Democrats here, he said. Seventy percent of married women, whose vote GOP presidential candidates have won since 1996, have a negative view of Trump, according to a recent Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies poll.

Effect on local races

Such a sizeable push could impact down-ballot elections, particularly in Harris County, which has the country's largest Latino population after Los Angeles, more than 1.9 million.

Mobilizing Hispanic voters could imperil two dozen Republican judges in the county, as well as the Harris County district attorney and sheriff, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. It could add one or two Democratic state legislators and a congressman in District 23, which stretches from the Mexican border to San Antonio.

Until this presidential campaign, Mateo Amador, a 47-year-old body technician at an auto repair shop, has never been motivated to vote. He came to Houston from Mexico three decades ago and has had his green card since 2005.

Angered by Trump's remarks against Mexicans, however, he applied for his citizenship several months ago and was sworn in last week.